INL awards contracts for test reactor research
The Idaho National Laboratory has launched an effort to develop the instruments and tools needed to develop a proposed fast spectrum test reactor. The lab has $3.9 million in funding for 13 university-led projects.
Those projects were approved by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy’s Versatile Test Reactor Program. The Department of Energy is working to develop a conceptual design and cost estimate for the new reactor, which would support advanced reactor research and development.
“Developing these instruments, tools and other experimental mechanisms are a necessary part of understanding what sorts of test capabilities are needed to advance the next generation of nuclear technology,” said Dr. Kemal Pasamehmetoglu, executive director of the Versatile Test Reactor program.
In 2017, the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee ordered “that DOE-NE proceed immediately with pre-conceptual design planning activities to support a new test reactor (including cost and schedule estimates).”
A number of U.S. companies are are working on different technologies, all of which require different testing capabilities than the commercial nuclear power technology in use today.
DOE is expected to decide whether to proceed with a fast spectrum irradiation test reactor in 2020. If approved, it would be built by domestic research entities.
The university-led projects selected for funding are:
University of Pittsburgh
Disruptive Nuclear Technology: Resonance Sensors and Inductive Signal Transmission through Hermetic Walls
$450,000
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Miniature Scale Liquid Metal Oxygen Purification and Measurement System
$350,000
University of Utah
Development of Experiment Vehicle for Analyzing the Chemistry of Irradiated Molten Salt
$450,400
Texas A&M University
Development of Innovative Measurement Techniques for Fission Product Transport Quantification
$250,000
Oregon State University
In Situ Mechanical and Corrosion Testing
$440,000
University of New Mexico
Preparatory Out-of-pile Lead Loop Experiments to Support Design of Irradiation Test Loop in VTR
$450,000
North Carolina State University
VIM for VTR: Holistic Approach to Design and Construction
$319,000
Texas A&M University
Rabbit System Design and Demonstration
$400,000
Abilene Christian University
Investigation of Instrumentation, Data Analytics, and Simulation Synergies for the Versatile Test Reactor
$150,000
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Advanced Data Acquisition and Simulation with Live Data Supporting VTR Experiments
$150,000
University of Idaho
Advanced Molten Salt Flow Sensor
$100,000
Colorado School of Mines
Big, Deep, and Smart Data to Support VTR Experiment Design and Validation
$169,000
Georgia Tech
IBD Power Monitor for the VTR Experimental Program
$196,000
